33% Sunshine – London

How much time do you really spend outside?

Unless you are independently wealthy – which I hope you are, and if so, outstanding job outta you! – you may not be spending your days outside rolling around in the grass anyway. And at last check, there were not public swimming pools at every corner in London.

London fog, clouds, rain, etc. We get it. But according to statistics, London has 33% of daylight hours filled with sunshine. That’s a good sunny day every three days, on average. Babe Ruth only batted 0.300, and he was the greatest.

So London is not Hawaii by any means. But what are the comparable points around the globe?

San Diego, California 68% of daylight hours filed with sunshine. Only two out of three days are sunny in San Diego?

New York, New York 58%. About one out of two days are sunny.

Seattle, Washington 47%. Seattle gets a bad rap for weather, but has the same or more sunshine than the cities below on this list. Including Singapore.

Singapore 47%

Tokyo, Japan 46%.

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 45%. Less sun than Seattle.

Paris, France 42%. Only 9% more sunshine than London?

Munich, Germany 42%

London, UK 33%

So Paris, the city of light and love, has only 9% more sunshine than London. Somehow that doesn’t seem to come up anywhere. Maybe everyone in Paris is in the Louvre and can’t see the sun. The Louvre is really big.

London weather creates the London atmosphere. Hard to imagine watching a beautiful sunset in London – which you couldn’t see anyway for all the buildings – or a pub on the beach. That’s not what the city is for. It’s for meeting the exciting and intriguing and mysterious stranger, and discovering the new adventure. These things are better done against a mysterious backdrop.